I have to give credit to new players entering the market. But basing success on a questionable metric is not a smartest move.

Are job aggregators, job boards?

One of the main problems of aggregating (or scraping) job ads is understanding when the job ad is unique, changed, or has been expired. You have to constantly scrape, compare and update your main database with the changes to ensure the users of the site are not redirected to expired job ads!

I had a quick look at a new site called uWorkin (jobs are pulled from MyCareer, Gumtree, Careerone, direct employers, etc). But they might want to check other job aggregation providers like Indeed, Recruit.net or Jobseeker.com.au to work out where they sit in the marketplace.

When you compare aggregators, you have to consider the number of duplicate job ads from multiple sources and weigh up the % of expired job ads.

Aggregators are not the primary source of the job, they can be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even 5th copy of the original job ad. But the credit for the application is always given to the primary source where the job application has been submitted.

If I look at this obscure job title, it is the same job ad from multiple sources.

I have found that In the Australian job board market there are some handy rules of thumb;

- all job ads are on SEEK (except for Jigsaw's apparently)
- a subset of those will also generally appear on CareerOne and/or MyCareer
- SEEK do not allow their site to be scraped so their ads are never (legally) aggregated
- the job aggregation model is fundamentally broken and is an unsatisfactory user experience
- the "next big thing" in job boards is nothing of the sort

Mark Van Goosen (2:20am Thursday 12 April 2012)

Brett - why is the job aggregation model fundamentally broken? how do you support that statement when Indeed.com has essentially validated the model with a golden seal by becoming the #1 most visited job site in the USA and overtaking all the dinosaur job boards!

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I love all the hype around mobile recruitment. Apparently, QR codes are all the rage at the moment. Hands up those who have a QR code reader on their phone. Most likely the answer is QR what?

QR codes have been around for a number of years. I wrote about using QR codes in the recruitment process a while back and have used them for a number of client campaigns - but even with the best execution, the %CTR is very low.

One of the best things about QR codes is that you can embed nearly any type of content into the design. But there is a downside to this. You can maliciously disrupt others recruitment campaigns, download malware onto the users device, or send them to other malicious websites/applications!

The user has little or no idea about what they are scanning with their phone by just looking at it. It's not until your phone reader software has processed the code and converted it into text/image that you realise what you are about to click through to.

Victoria Police is currently recruiting for over 900 Protective Service Officers to be stationed across our public transport network.

The recruitment campaign started last month and is currently using a number of mediums to advertise these jobs.

Part of the recruitment campaign involves 2 way SMS function where interested job seekers can SMS "Apply" or "Ready" to 132001 (for those in Australia) and then receive a SMS reply with the application details.

This 2 way SMS process is something we have talked about before....

Users can SMS shortcodes to a phone number (which can be tracked against particular campaigns) and receive more information.

In this example, the response from the system allows us to interact a second time by replying with our email address for an application pack.

But remember, 2 way SMS is not cheap. It may cost an intial setup fee for the shortcode/software and then a cost for each message sent and received.

What could you do with 20GB of your competitors sensitive email correspondence without anyone even noticing? A report released by security researchers analysing the effect of doppelganger domain traffic belonging to Fortune 500 companies was able to collect 20GB of misaddressed email over a 6 month period.

A doppelganger domain name is one that is spelled the same as the original, but missing the "." between the subdomain name, the qualified domain and/or the extension;

For example, you could setup a doppelganger domain name called "audrakeint.com" as opposed to the real email country prefix of "au.drakeint.com"

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 5 other large brands with email subdomains you could attempt this passive attack against including

au.nestle.com

au.pwc.com

au.ey.com

au.unisys.com

au.westfield.com

But, let's get back to how this could affect online recruitment.

If you read the research findings, you will notice that some of the most popular keywords contained in these emails are - secret, private, userid, password, login, confidentiality, invoice, and yes.. RESUME

Who in your organisation is responsible for sending resumes to clients?